Bring me the gift of loss—
baby teeth, big girl teeth
this dead old molar, done
chewing down years, rootless,
separated from the body
surrendered to silk-sack departures—
mother, father, lovers, husbands, friends
this house, that job, the accumulations
and cost of having.
Teach me to put youth, beauty
fire, fury, gutting want
under the pillow.
Tooth Fairy
Catherine Arra is a former high school English and writing teacher. Her poetry and prose have appeared in numerous literary journals online and in print, and in several anthologies. She is the author of Solitude, Tarot & the Corona Blues, forthcoming from Kelsay Books in 2023, Deer Love (Dos Madres Press, 2021), Her Landscape, Poems Based on the Life of Mileva Marić Einstein, (Finishing Line Press, 2020), (Women in Parentheses) (Kelsay Books, 2019),Writing in the Ether (Dos Madres Press, 2018) and three chapbooks. Arra lives in upstate New York, where she teaches part-time, and facilitates local writing groups. Find her at www.catherinearra.com